“I second the motion,” Admiral Lindshaw said.
“Discussion?” Stonefield asked.
The discussion went on for hours, but in the end Sondak’s Joint Chiefs voted in favor of the motion and put General Mari in charge of the operation. It gave him no pleasure to know that he was about to commit tens of thousands of men and women to certain death if the Ukes attacked. Yet he knew that their stand could prove to be a vital contribution to Sondak’s defense.
They would be trained and led by the best people under his command. If they failed in their mission, it would be noted that the decision to use such an inherently weak force belonged to the Joint Chiefs. But if they succeed, General Fortuno Mari’s name would go down in the annals of military history as one of Sondak’s best. He might even get to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs. No one could ask for more than that in his career.
◊ ◊ ◊
Admiral Pajandcan spread the defense fleet and sent out the first patrol wave of fifty Long Range Reconaissance Ships. She had little belief that the LRRS would find the Ukes in the depths of space. But those small lightspeed ships crammed full of detection devices were the only insurance she had beyond the subspace monitors. Their highly skilled three-member crews had the cocky assurance of elitists that even her stern send-off did not seem to dampen.
Perhaps that is what we need, she thought as she cleared the acknowledgment of their departure from her report screen. Perhaps we need more people with that kind of assurance. “And perhaps I need it,” she added aloud. “Maybe I should take my lesson from them and Dawson.”
Dawson. The thought of what he and Reckynop would be up against if the Ukes got past her sent a quick chill down her spine. Then she smiled grimly. Cold chills were hardly the way to start a campaign of self-assurance. No, Dawson would do the best he could with what he had, and probably better than anyone else could with the same resources. Her job was to make sure his resources weren’t strained beyond his abilities to use them.
She leaned back and wearily rubbed her eyes. Now’s the time to get some rest, she told herself. “Torgy,” she said into the intercom, “I’m going to catch forty. Don’t interrupt me unless there’s an absolute need. Is that understood?”
“Yes, ma’am,” his disembodied voice said from the speaker, “but before you do, ma’am, you might want to switch on your screen and take a look at this stuff Subspace is sending up.”
His suggestion snapped her alert, and she had her screen on before he finished speaking. “Any comment with this?” she asked as a series of sine wave graphs flicked across her screen at three-second intervals.
“No, ma’am, not yet.”
“What do you make of them, Torgy?”
“Hard to tell. Captain Nickerson is standing by. Shall I have him come up?”
“You’d better.”
Minutes later Nickerson entered her office wearing an odd smile and carrying a thick folder. “Top of the watch, Admiral,” he said after she returned his salute.
“If you say so, Nick. Now what have we got here?”
“A better scan than we hoped for, I think. I ran some selected hard copies for you,” he said, handing her the folder.
She took it and flipped it open immediately. The form of the first graph looked familiar to her, but she knew better than to try to interpret it. Nickerson moved around her desk and stood beside her.
“See this spike,” he said, putting his thick forefinger in the middle of the graph. “That’s the Ukes heading this way.”
Pajandcan was used to his dramatic statements and waited for him to continue.
“Of course they’re still pretty close to home, and it’s hard to get any definite vectors at this distance, but I’ll tell you what, Admiral, that’s a damn big fleet they’ve put together.”
“Sit down, Nick,” Pajandcan said with an easy smile and a wave to the chair across from her, “and tell me how much of this we can actually depend on.”
“All of it,” Nickerson said, moving back around the desk. “You can depend on all of it.”
“So when will they be here?”
Nickerson started. “Ma’am?”
“I said, when will they be here, Nick? If I’m going to depend on all this, I need to know when they’ll be here.”
“Uh, that’s not exactly what I meant, Admiral.”
“No, I suspect it isn’t. So try it again.” She shut the folder and tapped it repeatedly. “How much of this information is actually worth something to us here and now?” She stared him directly in the eyes, and he looked hurt.
“Why, all of it, Admiral. Every bit of it. Those charts give us background radiation, consistency patterns, normal fluctuations, and the general location of the Uke fleet.”
Pajandcan smiled. “How general? Within a tachymeter? Two? Five? Ten?”
“More like twenty-five,” he said without looking at her.
“Come on, Nick. Give me something to work with.” When she saw the deflated look on his face she understood why. “You’re proud of this information, aren’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And you wanted to share it with me, right?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he repeated with a slight smile.
“And I ruined it for you. No,” she said holding up her hand and waving off his protest, “I know what I did. But listen to me, Nick. We’re sitting here trying to catch tidfish with a net that wouldn’t hold a Reckynopian goliathshark. I appreciate your net and what you’re trying to do with it, but until you can close it up a little, it’s not going to do us much good.”
Suddenly he looked at her, and his face brightened. “I understand, Admiral. I just thought you might – but never mind that. There is something toward the back of the folder,” he said taking it and flipping it over, “something which just hit me.” He turned quickly through the back pages until he gave a satisfied grunt and pulled out a folded blue sheet. After opening it, he stared at it for a minute until Pajandcan cleared her throat.
“Oh, sorry, Admiral. I just wanted to be sure I was right. Look at this,” he said as he turned the sheet around and laid it on the desk in front of her.
Pajandcan immediately recognized a computer-produced set of star maps – six of them that all looked identical under her quick glance. “So?” she asked, looking up into Nickerson’s grinning face. “Are you going to let me in on the secret?”
“It’s dumb, Admiral. It’s so dumb I can’t believe we didn’t think of it.”
“Spit it out, Nick. What’s dumb?”
“Admiral, those maps were sent in by the six major subspace monitors. Except for some basically insignificant differences in angles and one other thing, they’re almost exactly alike.”
“And the other thing?” Pajandcan was becoming impatient, but she could tell Nickerson was working out the solution as he explained it to her.
“The other thing is that there ought to be a trail in front of all that star clutter – a detectable neutron trail on those maps from a Uke fleet that big. We ought to be able to see where they came from.”
Pajandcan was one jump ahead of him now. “And tell where they’re going,” she said triumphantly. “Maybe,” she added with less enthusiasm.
“It’s better than what we have so far, Admiral. It’ll take some fancy enhancement, ma’am, but I’ll bet we can dig that trail out for you.”
“Then what are you still doing in my office?” she asked as she rose to her feet. “Let’s get to work.” As much as she wanted to believe that Nickerson was right, and as much as she hoped he was, Pajandcan wondered if they really could get enough information in time to do the defense forces any good.
Well, she thought as she followed Nickerson down the companionway toward the subspace monitoring section, at least this beats sitting around waiting for the Ukes to arrive.
20
“IS IMPORTANT INFORMATION,” he said sullenly. The image on the screen was faded orange and fuzzy, but Ayne Wallen could at least te
ll he was talking to a female human being. An old one, he thought derisively, not pretty like Sjean Birkie. “Is most important information,” he repeated.
“We heard you the first time,” the female said in thickly accented gentongue that was muted by the subspace transmission. “However, you will have to be more specific than that. And you will have to hurry. This is a narrow communications window, and we are rapidly losing it.”
“Has to do with Sondak’s biggest weapon,” Ayne lied. He wasn’t about to tell them that the weapon did not exist yet except in his mind. After weeks of working on Xindella’s defective Gouldrive, bruising his hands and his head, and cursing anyone and everyone within thinking distance, he was less willing than ever to give up any information he did not have to.
The female made a rude sound. “We are not interested.”
“Have to be interested!” Ayne screamed suddenly “Will cost you war if not interested. Sondak will blow you to –“
Xindella’s rough hand choked him off.
“Pardons a thousand, friend Judoff,” Xindella said as he held Ayne by the neck away from the screen and sat in his place. “My client is irritated and frightened, as any man carrying such valuable secrets would naturally be. But I do ask you reconsider your interest. As I told you before, I have already – at great expense to myself, I might add – obtained secure transportation for this client in anticipation of your interest.”
“I do not care about your client or your costs,” Judoff said in a voice that was developing a scratchy subspace echo.
“Ah,” Xindella sighed, “then I shall have to sell him back to Sondak.” He tightened his grip on Ayne’s neck as the grasping human tried to jerk away from him.
“Sondak would buy him?”
“But, of course, my old friend, I thought I had made that clear. Now I see you are fading. Perhaps I can find something else you are interested in at a future date.”
“Squeeeeeezzk send der idiot heerumph…” the fading image on the screen said before its voice broke into static.
“Do you think that means she wants you?” Xindella asked, relaxing his grip on Ayne’s neck and letting the human drop to the floor.
Ayne could only rub his bruised throat and make rough rasping noises as he glared at Xindella and tried to take a full breath. He would kill Xindella. Someday, somehow, if there was ever a chance, he would kill that despicable alien.
“Yes, I agree,” Xindella said smoothly. “I do believe she wants me to send you. And that means she is willing to meet our price.” He looked down at Ayne. “But that means, of course, that you will have to refrain from following that vicious impulse I see in your eyes, Employee Wallen. Otherwise I would have to sell you at a discount to Judoff as damaged merchandise. And of course, you would have to absorb the discount from your share of this venture. You wouldn’t want to do that, would you?”
The no barely grated from Ayne’s throat.
“Good. Now I believe you still have some work to finish on my Gouldrive.”
Ayne staggered to his feet without quite comprehending the swirl of anger and hate in his heart. He swallowed painfully. “Stick Gouldrive in ear…and out other…alien dung,” he rasped. As he steadied himself, he flicked his eyes around the room in search of a weapon.
Xindella snorted with bared teeth, and the sound rang painfully in Ayne’s ears.
“Fix it, fool,” Xindella said finally, “Or you will get no more gorlet. Then in the midst of your withdrawal, I will break your bones one by one until only your head will be working properly when you get to the U.C.S.”
The thought of no more gorlet frightened Ayne more than any threat to his body. Without responding he turned and left the office. He wanted to turn back and say something, anything, but he knew he was addicted to the gorlet – knew he couldn’t live without it. Xindella had withdrawn it from him for a day just to prove the addiction. But if it wasn’t for gorlet, he thought as he walked slowly through the labyrinth back to Xindella’s ship, I would kill him. I would. I would. I would kill him.
◊ ◊ ◊
Rochmon turned his back as the latest ephemera faded away in a whisper of faint odor, and caught himself thinking about Mica Gilbert. It wasn’t the first time. She had haunted his erotic dreams more and more since she had gone out with her father to help defend Matthews system. Yet those thoughts about her always made him angry – always pushed forward in his thoughts with hints of shame and recrimination.
“There is no time for this,” he said quietly as he got out of the bed and stripped off the disposable sheets. He wadded them up and shoved them violently into the incinerator shute. And you have no right, he reminded himself. But as he stepped into the shower and turned it to high intensity vibrations, he could not get Mica off his mind.
Love had only been a word with a very limited meaning for so many years that even when he dared think that he loved Mica Gilbert, he immediately rejected that idea. He did not know how to love anything except his job. Cryptography was the only thing in life that mattered to him. Somewhere deep inside he doubted his capacity to truly love another human being. Two failed marriages and three bitter children should be evidence enough of that for any man.
The only person I ever loved, he thought as he roughly soaped his lean body, wasn’t a person at all. Even after all these years, he flushed with a slight grin at the thought of the alien Brede and the incredible lust she had aroused in him. No, that wasn’t love – a perverse, tender, consuming fascination for the alien, yes, but not love. Love was just a word he could no longer define.
Rochmon rinsed himself thoroughly and turned off the shower. As he dried himself and walked into the bedroom, he suddenly realized that something different had happened to him with the last ephemera. Always before he had let his mind float when he had intercourse with an ephemera, and always before his mind had floated sooner or later to Brede. But last night, somewhere on the brink of orgasm, Mica’s image had taken Brede’s place. She had moved into his active fantasy.
With a shiver he wrapped the damp towel around himself and opened his closet. Why? Why was he so obsessed with Mica? Why couldn’t he push her out of his dreams? Why was she spoiling his one acceptable relief mechanism?
“Spoiling?” he asked aloud as he pulled on his uniform. What was she spoiling? And why was he trying to shift the blame to her? She was innocent. He was the one who had dragged her rudely into his lust.
On the way to headquarters, his mind played with questions about Mica, and how he felt about her, and the ever recurring question of why this was happening to him. It was only when Bock greeted him at the door of his office that he managed to put the questions aside for the moment.
“Perfect timing,” Bock said with a grim smile as she handed Rochmon a single sheet of paper stamped Ultra Secret.
“What do you mean?” he asked. As soon as he read the brief message and noted its reception time he understood. “There’s no source code on here.”
“It’s a background interception. One of Pajandcan’s LRRSs picked it up. She forwarded it through Mungtinez Relay. Probably didn’t even know what it was.”
“Damn,” Rochmon said softly as he read the traitor’s message again. Then he looked up at Bock. “What do you think?”
“Seems obvious, doesn’t it? A traitor in Matthews system has access to subspace transmitting equipment.”
“But this isn’t enough. It tells us someone is sending defense information to the Ukes, but not what they sent or who sent it. Dammit Bock, what are we supposed to do with this?”
“Dump it on Captain Gilbert. She’s the honor trustee.”
“What about Admiral Dawson?”
“Suppose he is the traitor?”
Rochmon had considered that. Dawson’s past certainly made his allegiances subject to question. “All right,” he said reluctantly. “Code it and send it to Mica with appropriate notations. But send a separate message to Admiral Dawson telling him he has a security leak. If he is the trai
tor, that might slow him down. If he isn’t, then he can tighten his own operation. Either way, we don’t have anything to lose.”
Bock looked at him with a cruel curl in the corners of her mouth. “Well?” he said, “you think there’s something wrong with that approach?”
“No. Not at all,” she said, the curl turning into a smile of private amusement. “I just wonder what your little captain will do with this information.”
No matter how long he had worked with Bock, Rochmon was still capable of being startled by her. “What do you mean, ‘my little captain’?”
“Just what I said.” Bock picked up the message and turned away from him.
“Hold it, Bock.” Rochmon was surprised by the anger in his voice. “Sit down,” he said when she turned around with deep wrinkles marking the smile still on her face.
“Something else, Commander?” she asked sarcastically.
“Yes, Bock,” he said in a tightly controlled voice. “Apparently I have failed to make myself clear on this point with you, so perhaps this is the appropriate time to do so.”
“Spit it out, Commander.” Her smile disappeared, “Tell me not to make snide remarks about your precious little Captain Gilbert and then let me go back to work.”
“I’ll do better than that, Bock,” he said with sudden inspiration. “You keep your personal comments to yourself in the future or I’ll get you called back to active duty, then bust you to lieutenant for insubordination.”
“You wouldn’t dare, Commander.”
“Try me, Bock. Just try me. You think because you’re still a civilian that you can say what you damn well please. You keep doing that, and I’ll remind you there’s a war going on. You’ll find you’re not a civilian any more, and you’ll have me and every senior officer in this headquarters censoring your words.” He paused with pleasure as the look of belief crept onto her face. “Do I make myself clear?”
Double Spiral War Trilogy Page 21